Amazon.com: Customer Reviews: License Renewed (James Bond) License Renewed (James Bond) 3.7 out of 5 stars 51 Format: Mass Market Paperback| Change Your rating( Clear )Rate this item One person found this helpful 5.0 out of 5 starsThe first book in the best post-Fleming Bond series. ByCharles B.on March 29, 2015 Five stars is not to indicate that it is nearly as good as Fleming's work. But if the category is only post-Fleming Bond novels, this is the place to start. The first book in the best post-Fleming Bond series. Solid action. Bond's inner commentary clearly tries to mimic Fleming's work, and somehow it comes closer to succeeding than any of the work by other post-Fleming Bond writers. Bond gets roughed up, and there is no overindulgence of silly gadgets. Gardner does Bond very well, and this is one of his better ones. 6 people found this helpful 3.0 out of 5 starsStarts strong, story runs long ByApril E.on November 8, 2012 This was a good, but not great, book.

Having read all of Ian Fleming's 007 books and having high expectations I was pleasantly surprised on picking up "License Renewed." I could not put the book down for the first 100 pages or so, sneaking away & making time to read more. Around page 150 or so, the suspense started to die on me and I found myself just wanting to get to the end so I could start another story. It was a little too formulaic, even for a Bond novel. The writing itself was good but not as tight as I'd come to expect with Fleming's writing style. This was a positive in the beginning while the stage was being set and the characters cast, but it slowed the pace during the action sequences. In all, it was a good read and a cheap purchase. I'm glad that the 007 series continued on after Ian Fleming, but it wasn't quite up to the same level. I'll be interested to see if the other John Gardner 007 novels I've ordered come closer to the mark as this was his first effort in the 007 genre. Format: Paperback | Verified Purchase This was a good, but not great, book.

Having read all of Ian Fleming's 007 books and having high expectations I was pleasantly surprised on picking up "License Renewed." I could not put the book down for the first 100 pages or so, sneaking away & making time to read more. Around page 150 or so, the suspense started to die on me and I found myself just wanting to get to the end so I could start another story. It was a little too formulaic, even for a Bond novel. The writing itself was good but not as tight as I'd come to expect with Fleming's writing style. This was a positive in the beginning while the stage was being set and the characters cast, but it slowed the pace during the action sequences. In all, it was a good read and a cheap purchase. I'm glad that the 007 series continued on after Ian Fleming, but it wasn't quite up to the same level. I'll be interested to see if the other John Gardner 007 novels I've ordered come closer to the mark as this was his first effort in the 007 genre. 0Comment | 6 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?

Yes No Report abuse Comment Format: Kindle Edition | Verified Purchase The 1970s saw the two excellent James Bond continuation novels by Christopher Wood “James Bond, The Spy Who Loved Me” in 1977 and two years later “James Bond, Moonraker”. Although these two books owed much of their basic plots to the movies that Wood helped write, they were in fact much more than that with fully rounded characters and an entertaining narrative. In short, of all the writers to tackle the difficult task of following in Ian Fleming’s foosteps, Christopher Wood was the most successful, effectively managing to channel Fleming. The same cannot be said for John Gardner. Although I enjoyed reading “Licence Renewed” I am not entirely convinced that I was reading a James Bond novel. Aside from some brilliant sections, the story seems more fitting to a movie. In what is truly an ironic twist it does more so than Wood’s two efforts. The plot involves Bond’s investigation into a Scottish Laird and his plan to cause a nuclear catastrophe to highlight the danger inherent in the use of nuclear power. I enjoyed that Gardner’s books took us to Scotland.

Having grown up on the Scottish border I am always in favor of some Highland fun and we get a particularly well done scene when Bond must spar with the villain’s henchman Caber and thrilling night chase through the Scottish countryside. But without the rich flavor that was so evident in Fleming and Wood’s work we are left feeling that these scenes could have just as easily taken place anywhere else. Gardner’s first foray into the world of James Bond is a valiant effort and reads perfectly well as a thriller, it just doesn’t read well as a James Bond thriller. A note of caution. The Amazon listing states that an introduction is included by Raymond Benson. This must be the print edition because I purchased the Kindle version and no introduction was included. James Bond History - Discover The Secret Agent's Origins And More SEE ALSO – Top Ten James Bond Cars That I Would Love To Own A new novel, written by William Boyd, is planned for release in 2013. Additionally, Charlie Higson wrote a series on a young James Bond, and Kate Westbrook wrote three novels based on the diaries of a recurring series character, Moneypenny.

The fictional British Secret Service agent has also been adapted for television, radio, comic strip, and video game formats in addition to having been used in the longest continually running and the second-highest grossing film series to date, which started in 1962 with Dr. No, starring Sean Connery as Bond. As of 2013, there have been twenty-three films in the Eon Productions series. The most recent Bond film, Skyfall (2012), stars Daniel Craig in his third portrayal of Bond; he is the sixth actor to play Bond in the Eon series. There have also been two independent productions of Bond films: Casino Royale (a 1967 spoof) and Never Say Never Again (a 1983 remake of an earlier Eon-produced film, Thunderball). The Bond films are renowned for a number of features, including the musical accompaniment, with the theme songs having received Academy Award nominations on several occasions, and one win. Other important elements which run through most of the films include Bond’s cars, his guns, and the gadgets with which he is supplied by Q Branch.

James Bond History As the central figure for his works, Ian Fleming created the fictional character of James Bond, an intelligence officer in the Secret Intelligence Service, commonly known as MI6. Bond was also known by his code number, 007, and was a Royal Naval Reserve Commander. James Bond Name Fleming took the name for his character from that of the American ornithologist James Bond, a Caribbean bird expert and author of the definitive field guide Birds of the West Indies. Fleming, a keen birdwatcher himself, had a copy of Bond’s guide and he later explained to the ornithologist’s wife that “It struck me that this brief, unromantic, Anglo-Saxon and yet very masculine name was just what I needed, and so a second James Bond was born”.

He further explained that: “When I wrote the first one in 1953, I wanted Bond to be an extremely dull, uninteresting man to whom things happened; I wanted him to be a blunt instrument … when I was casting around for a name for my protagonist I thought by God, (James Bond) is the dullest name I ever heard.” —Ian Fleming, The New Yorker, 21 April 1962 Inspiration Fleming based his fictional creation on a number of individuals he came across during his time in the Naval Intelligence Division during World War II, admitting that Bond “was a compound of all the secret agents and commando types I met during the war”. Among those types were his brother, Peter, who had been involved in behind-the-lines operations in Norway and Greece during the war. Aside from Fleming’s brother, a number of others also provided some aspects of Bond’s make up, including Conrad O’Brien-ffrench, Patrick Dalzel-Job and Bill “Biffy” Dunderdale. Tastes Fleming also endowed Bond with many of his own traits, including sharing the same golf handicap, the taste for scrambled eggs and using the same brand of toiletries.

Bond’s tastes are also often taken from Fleming’s own as was his behavior, with Bond’s love of golf and gambling mirroring Fleming’s own. Fleming also used his experiences of his espionage career and all other aspects of his life as inspiration when writing, including using names of school friends, acquaintances, relatives and lovers throughout his books. Background It was not until the penultimate novel, You Only Live Twice, that Fleming gave Bond a sense of family background. The book was the first to be written after the release of Dr. No in cinemas and Sean Connery’s depiction of Bond affected Fleming’s interpretation of the character, to give Bond both a sense of humor and Scottish antecedents that were not present in the previous stories. In a fictional obituary, purportedly published in The Times, Bond’s parents were given as Andrew Bond, from the village of Glencoe, Scotland, and Monique Delacroix, from the canton of Vaud, Switzerland.

Fleming did not provide Bond’s date of birth, but John Pearson’s fictional biography of Bond, James Bond: The Authorized Biography of 007, gives Bond a birth date on 11 November 1920, while a study by John Griswold puts the date at 11 November 1921. Ian Fleming novels Whilst serving in the Naval Intelligence Division, Fleming had planned to become an author and had told a friend, “I am going to write the spy story to end all spy stories.” On 17 February 1952, he began writing his first James Bond novel, Casino Royale at his Goldeneye estate in Jamaica, where he wrote all his Bond novels during the months of January and February each year. He started the story shortly before his wedding to his pregnant girlfriend, Ann Charteris, in order to distract himself from his forthcoming nuptials. After completing the manuscript for Casino Royale, Fleming showed the manuscript to his friend (and later editor) William Plomer to read. Plomer liked it and submitted it to the publishers, Jonathan Cape, who did not like it as much.

Cape finally published it in 1953 on the recommendation of Fleming’s older brother Peter, an established travel writer. Between 1953 and 1966, two years after his death, twelve novels and two short-story collections were published, with the last three books – The Man with the Golden Gun, Octopussy and The Living Daylights – published posthumously. All the books were published in the UK through Jonathan Cape. 1953 Casino Royale 1954 Live and Let Die 1955 Moonraker 1957 From Russia, with Love 1958 Dr. No 1960 For Your Eyes Only (short stories) 1961 Thunderball 1962 The Spy Who Loved Me 1963 On Her Majesty’s Secret Service 1964 You Only Live Twice 1965 The Man with the Golden Gun 1966 Octopussy The Living Daylights (short stories) Post-Fleming novels After Fleming’s death a continuation novel, Colonel Sun, was written by Kingsley Amis (as Robert Markham) and published in 1968.

Amis had already written a literary study of Fleming’s Bond novels in his 1965 work The James Bond Dossier. Although novelizations of two of the Eon Productions Bond films appeared in print, James Bond, The Spy Who Loved Me and James Bond and Moonraker, both written by screenwriter Christopher Wood, the series of novels did not continue until the 1980s. In 1981, thriller writer John Gardner picked up the series with License Renewed. Gardner went on to write sixteen Bond books in total; two of the books he wrote – License to Kill and GoldenEye – were novelizations of Eon Productions films of the same name. Gardner moved the Bond series into the 1980s, although he retained the ages of the characters as they were when Fleming had left them. In 1996, Gardner retired from writing James Bond books due to ill health. 1981 Licence Renewed 1995 GoldenEye (novelization) 1996 COLD In 1996, American author Raymond Benson became the author of the Bond novels.

Benson had previously been the author of The James Bond Bedside Companion, first published in 1984. By the time he moved on to other, non-Bond related projects in 2002, Benson had written six Bond novels, three novelizations and three short stories. 1997 “Blast From the Past” (short story) 1997 Zero Minus Ten 1997 Tomorrow Never Dies (novelization) 1998 The Facts of Death 1999 “Midsummer Night’s Doom” (short story) 1999 “Live at Five”[60] (short story) 1999 The World Is Not Enough (novelization) 1999 High Time to Kill 2000 DoubleShot 2001 Never Dream of Dying 2002 The Man with the Red Tattoo 2002 Die Another Day (novelization) After a gap of six years, Sebastian Faulks was commissioned by Ian Fleming Publications to write a new Bond novel, which was released on 28 May 2008, the 100th anniversary of Ian Fleming’s birth.

The book—titled Devil May Care—was published in the UK by Penguin Books and by Doubleday in the US. American writer Jeffery Deaver was then commissioned by Ian Fleming Publications to produce Carte Blanche, which was published on 26 May 2011. The book updated Bond into a post-9/11 agent, independent of MI5 or MI6. James Bond For TV And Movies In 1954 CBS paid Ian Fleming $1,000 ($8,549 in 2013 dollars) to adapt his novel Casino Royale into a one-hour television adventure. The episode aired live on 21 October 1954 and starred Barry Nelson as “Card Sense” James ‘Jimmy’ Bond and Peter Lorre as Le Chiffre. The novel was adapted for American audiences to show Bond as an American agent working for “Combined Intelligence”, while the character Felix Leiter—American in the novel—became British onscreen and was renamed “Clarence Leiter”. In 1962 Eon Productions, the company of Canadian Harry Saltzman and American Albert R.

“Cubby” Broccoli, released the first cinema adaptation of an Ian Fleming novel, Dr. No, featuring Sean Connery as 007. Connery starred in a further four films before leaving the role after You Only Live Twice, which was taken up by George Lazenby for On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. Lazenby left the role after just one appearance and Connery was tempted back for his last Eon-produced film Diamonds Are Forever. In 1973, Roger Moore was appointed to the role of 007 for Live and Let Die and played Bond a further six times over twelve years before being replaced by Timothy Dalton for two films. After a six-year hiatus, during which a legal wrangle threatened Eon’s productions of the Bond films, Irish actor Pierce Brosnan was cast as Bond in GoldenEye, released in 1995. Brosnan remained in the role for a total of four films, before leaving in 2002. In 2006, Daniel Craig was given the role of Bond for Casino Royale, which rebooted the series. The twenty-third Eon produced film, Skyfall, was released on 26 October 2012.

The series has grossed just over $6 billion to date, making it the second-highest-grossing film series (behind Harry Potter), and the single most successful adjusted for inflation. Dr.

No 1962 Sean Connery From Russia with Love 1963 Goldfinger 1964 You Only Live Twice 1967 On Her Majesty’s Secret Service 1969 George Lazenby Diamonds Are Forever 1971 Sean Connery Live and Let Die 1973 Roger Moore The Man with the Golden Gun 1974 The Spy Who Loved Me 1977 Moonraker 1979 For Your Eyes Only 1981 Octopussy 1983 A View to a Kill 1985 The Living Daylights 1987 Timothy Dalton Licence to Kill 1989 The World Is Not Enough 1999 Die Another Day 2002 Casino Royale 2006 Daniel Craig Quantum of Solace 2008 Skyfall 2012 James Bond Music The “James Bond Theme” was written by Monty Norman and was first orchestrated by the John Barry Orchestra for 1962’s Dr. No, although the actual authorship of the music has been a matter of controversy for many years.

A Bond film staple are the theme songs heard during their title sequences sung by well-known popular singers. Several of the songs produced for the films have been nominated for Academy Awards for Original Song, including Paul McCartney’s “Live and Let Die”, Carly Simon’s “Nobody Does It Better”, Sheena Easton’s “For Your Eyes Only” and Adele’s “Skyfall”. Adele won the award at the 85th Academy Awards. For the non-Eon produced Casino Royale, Burt Bacharach’s score included “The Look of Love”, which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Song. James Bond Video games In 1983, the first Bond video game, developed and published by Parker Brothers, was released for the Atari 2600, the Atari 5200, the Atari 800, the Commodore 64 and the ColecoVision. Since then, there have been numerous video games either based on the films or using original storylines. In 1997, the first-person shooter video game GoldenEye 007 was developed by Rare for the Nintendo 64, based on the 1995 Pierce Brosnan film GoldenEye.

The game received very positive reviews, won the BAFTA Interactive Entertainment Award for UK Developer of the Year in 1998 and sold over eight million copies worldwide, grossing $250 million. In 1999, Electronic Arts acquired the license and released Tomorrow Never Dies on 16 December 1999. In October 2000, they released The World Is Not Enough for the Nintendo 64 followed by 007 Racing for the PlayStation on 21 November 2000. In 2003, the company released James Bond 007: Everything or Nothing, which included the likenesses and voices of Pierce Brosnan, Willem Dafoe, Heidi Klum, Judi Dench and John Cleese, amongst others. In November 2005, Electronic Arts released a video game adaptation of 007: From Russia with Love, which involved Sean Connery’s image and voice-over for Bond. In 2006 Electronic Arts announced a game based on then-upcoming film Casino Royale: the game was canceled because it would not be ready by the film’s release in November of that year.

With MGM losing revenue from lost licensing fees, the franchise was removed from EA to Activision. Activision subsequently released the 007: Quantum of Solace game on 31 October 2008, based on the film of the same name. In October 2012 007 Legends was released, which featured one mission from each of the Bond actors of the Eon Productions’ series. James Bond Guns For the first five novels, Fleming armed Bond with a Beretta 418 until he received a letter from a thirty-one-year-old Bond enthusiast and gun expert, Geoffrey Boothroyd, criticizing Fleming’s choice of firearm for Bond, calling it “a lady’s gun – and not a very nice lady at that!” Boothroyd suggested that Bond should swap his Beretta for a Walther PPK 7.65mm and this exchange of arms made it to Dr. No. Boothroyd also gave Fleming advice on the Berns-Martin triple draw shoulder holster and a number of the weapons used by SMERSH and other villains. In thanks, Fleming gave the MI6 Armorer in his novels the name Major Boothroyd and, in Dr.

No, M introduces him to Bond as “the greatest small-arms expert in the world”. Bond also used a variety of rifles, including the Savage Model 99 in “For Your Eyes Only” and a Winchester .308 target rifle in “The Living Daylights”. Other handguns used by Bond in the Fleming books included the Colt Detective Special and a long-barreled Colt .45 Army Special. The first Bond film, Dr. No, saw M ordering Bond to leave his Beretta behind and take up the Walther PPK, which the film Bond used in eighteen films. In Tomorrow Never Dies and the two subsequent films, Bond’s main weapon was the Walther P99 semi-automatic pistol. James Bond Vehicles In the early Bond stories Fleming gave Bond a battleship-gray Bentley 4½ Liter with an Amherst Villiers supercharger. After Bond’s car was written off by Hugo Drax in Moonraker, Fleming gave Bond a Mark II Continental Bentley, which he used in the remaining books of the series. During Goldfinger, Bond was issued with an Aston Martin DB Mark III with a homing device, which he used to track Goldfinger across France. Bond returned to his Bentley for the subsequent novels.

The Bond of the films has driven a number of cars, including the Aston Martin V8 Vantage, during the 1980s, the V12 Vanquish and DBS during the 2000s, as well as the Lotus Esprit; the BMW Z3, BMW 750iL and the BMW Z8. He has, however, also needed to drive a number of other vehicles, ranging from a Citroën 2CV to a Routemaster Bus, amongst others. Bond’s most famous car is the silver gray Aston Martin DB5, first seen in Goldfinger; it later featured in Thunderball, GoldenEye, Tomorrow Never Dies, Casino Royale and Skyfall. The films have used a number of different Aston Martins for filming and publicity, one of which was sold in January 2006 at an auction in the US for $2,090,000 to an unnamed European collector. James Bond Gadgets Fleming’s novels and early screen adaptations presented minimal equipment such as the booby-trapped attaché case in From Russia with Love, although this situation changed dramatically with the films. However, the effects of the two Eon-produced Bond films Dr.

No and From Russia with Love had an effect on the novel The Man with the Golden Gun, through the increased number of devices used in Fleming’s final story. For the film adaptations of Bond, the pre-mission briefing by Q Branch became one of the motifs that ran through the series. Dr. No provided no spy-related gadgets, but a Geiger counter was used; industrial designer Andy Davey observed that the first ever on screen spy-gadget was the attaché case shown in From Russia with Love, which he described as “a classic 007 product”. The gadgets assumed a higher profile in the 1964 film Goldfinger. The film’s success encouraged further espionage equipment from Q Branch to be supplied to Bond, although the increased use of technology led to an accusation that Bond was over-reliant on equipment, particularly in the later films. Davey noted that “Bond’s gizmos follow the zeitgeist more closely than any other … nuance in the films” as they moved from the potential representations of the future in the early films, through to the brand-name obsessions of the later films.

It is also noticeable that, although Bond uses a number of pieces of equipment from Q Branch, including the Little Nellie autogyro, a jet pack and the exploding attaché case, the villains are also well-equipped with custom-made devices, including Scaramanga’s golden gun, Rosa Klebb’s poison-tipped shoes, Oddjob’s steel-rimmed bowler hat and Blofeld’s communication and bacteriological warfare agents vanity case. James Bond books | James Bond Wiki | Fandom powered by Wikia Fleming Ian Fleming at work After serving in the British Naval Intelligence Division during World War II, Fleming was inspired to write a novel about an international spy. Fleming bragged to his friends about how good he believed the book would be. Fleming chose a bland but masculine name for his main character and gave the character many of his own personal tastes including golf and gambling. He began writing his first Bond novel in 1952 in Jamaica over two months to take his mind off his upcoming wedding and pregnant fiancé. Casino Royale was published in 1953 to moderate reviews but great sales in the UK.

Fleming, who's full time job was a Forgeign Manager for a UK newspaper, used his yearly 3-month holiday to write each Bond book resulting in 1954's Live and Let Die , 1955's Moonraker , 1956's Diamonds Are Forever , 1957's From Russia with Love , 1958's Dr. No , 1959's Goldfinger , 1960's For Your Eyes Only -- a collection of short Bond stories -- 1961's Thunderball , 1962's The Spy Who Loved Me , 1963's On Her Magesty's Secret Service , and 1964's You Only Live Twice . Fleming was a heavy drinker and smoker and suffered heart disease. He suffered his first heart attack in 1961 and a fatal heart attack in August 1964. His final two books, 1965's The Man with the Golden Gun and 1966's collection of short stories Octopussy and The Living Daylights were published posthumously.

Gildrose Publications Kingsley Amis With the success and fortune found by Casino Royale , Fleming purchased the small publication company Gildrose Publications, which had only published his novel. Gildrose, latered renamed Ian Fleming Publications in 1999 continues to license the Bond franchise and expand the literary catalogue. Gildrose planned on having several authors use the pen name "Robert Markham" to continue to scribe more Bond books but the idea was scrapped after only one work, Colonel Sun , was written by English author and Bond fan Kingsley Amis in 1968. Amis also wrote a short story about an elderly Bond returning in a time of crisis, but was refused permission to publish it. Gildrose produced two novelizations to the EON films, James Bond, The Spy Who Loved Me and James Bond and Moonraker in 1977 and 1979, respectively written by Christopher Wood . John Gardner Gardner After a thirteen year hiatus of original content (and recently after the death of Anne Charteris, Fleming's wife) Gildrose contracted John Gardner to scribe several Bond novels and to bring Bond in the modern 1980s.

In 1981 Licence Renewed was published to mediocre critical response and sales. Nevertheless Gardner wrote a total of 16 Bond novels, including two novelizations of feature films. In 1996 Gardner published his last Bond book, COLD . Raymond Benson Benson After Gardner's departure Raymond Benson was contracted by Gildrose to continue the Bond story. Benson, an American, was accused by fans of Americanizing the series but was also hailed as returning to Fleming's roots more than Gardner had managed. Benson wrote six original Bond novels, starting with 1997's Zero Minus Ten . Benson's novels, like Gardner's, featured James Bond in a modern year. He also wrote three film novelizations and three Bond short stories. In 2002 Benson left the Bond series. He is, to date, the only continuation author to release any short stories. Sebastian Faulks 2000's Ian Fleming Publications asked British author Sebastian Faulks to pen a new Bond novel in the early 2000's. Faulks delivered a novel set in the 1960's in 2008 titled Devil May Care .

Faulks chose to not continue and was replaced with American author Jeffery Deaver who penned Carte Blanche in 2011. In 2013 Ian Fleming Publications announced that William Boyd would pen the thirty-eighth Bond book in time for the 60th literary anniversary. Solo was released in September 2013 in the UK and October 2013 in the US. In 2014 it was announced that Anthony Horowitz would write the thirty-ninth Bond novel. He would be using previously unreleased material by Fleming as an inspiration. This would take the form of several plot treatments for a James Bond television series that was never made and ended up turning most of the plots into the short stories that formed the collections For Your Eyes Only and Octopussy and The Living Daylights . The book titled Trigger Mortis was released in September 2015. BBC - Culture - Ranking the James Bond authors after Ian Fleming Britain Ranking the James Bond authors after Ian Fleming Since Ian Fleming’s death, six authors have inherited the James Bond literary franchise and continued to write novels about the spy. Which is the best? Jane Ciabattari finds out.

By Jane Ciabattari 8 August 2014 In 1953, Ian Fleming’s novel Casino Royale introduced one of the most popular literary characters ever: the secret agent with the blue eyes, black hair and “cruel mouth”, the persistent appetites (for women, food and that special “shaken, not stirred” martini) and the immortal line “Bond, James Bond”. By the time Fleming, a former journalist and naval intelligence officer, died on 12 August 1964 at the age of 56, he had written 14 James Bond books and established the basis for his estate to manage the franchise. Fleming’s 007 prototype has proven, indestructible, surviving through 23 films and also 24 additional novels written by six successive authors (not including the movie novelisations). The James Bond books have had their ups and downs. Fleming was a shrewd and perceptive chronicler of a Cold War world much more dangerous than ordinary citizens understood it to be. He created Bond as a blunt instrument wielded by his superiors to preserve and protect.

Fleming fleshed out his 007 with a flair for clothes and cars, a powerful athleticism and a fondness for women paired with a tragic inability to maintain love. When Fleming’s Bond was caught, as he always was, the villain made him suffer. Readers knew that at some point, however, Bond would always prevail. Fleming’s work was noir with a safe landing at the end. He wrote with a rare combination of clarity, action, sensuous detail, wit and fantasy. Kingsley Amis, author of the first post-Ian Fleming 007 novel and the first critical appraisal, The James Bond Dossier, coined the still useful term “The Fleming effect”, which he describes as “the imaginative use of information, whereby the pervading fantastic nature of Bond’s world, as well as the temporary, local, fantastic elements in the story, are bolted down in some sort of reality”. Some of Fleming’s successors come up short when it comes to the crucial balance between imagination, authenticity and believability. Many are influenced as much by the film versions as by Fleming himself. Some have replaced Fleming’s Cold War plots with alternative wartime scenarios, to varying degrees of success.

A few have lost the daring and witty Fleming flavour altogether. The most successful maintain his taut action style while adding psychological depth and a contemporary sense of humour. Here’s my ranking of the six authors to carry on Fleming’s literary legacy: 6. Raymond Benson Benson, author of the reference book The James Bond Bedside Companion (1984), wrote six Bond books between 1996 and 2002. He had two directives, he notes in the introduction to Choice of Weapons, a compendium of three of his 007 novels: “Make the character of M a woman (to stay in synchronization with the Pierce Brosnan/Judi Dench films), and to somehow blend more contemporary elements (more action, gadgetry, humor).” Zero Minus Ten, Benson’s first novel, was set just before the British handover of Hong Kong to the People’s Republic of China in 1997. Bond ends up allied with the head of a Hong Kong triad in a race to keep the handover from becoming an explosive international disaster. Benson’s settings are effective, but he replaces Fleming’s pithy two-sentence backstories with pages of exposition that slow down the action.

(Compare Benson’s 20-page scene covering the rules of Bond’s Macau mahjong game to Fleming’s four-page explanation of the game of baccarat in Casino Royale during a dinner followed by champagne, strawberries and avocado pear.) His Bond seems a hollow man, devoid of the animating sense of Bond’s actions that play such an important role in Fleming’s books. View image of (Coronet) (Credit: Coronet) 5. Jeffrey Deaver In Carte Blanche (2011), bestselling author Deaver, author of the bestselling series of thrillers featuring NYPD detective Lincoln Rhyme, takes Bond to Serbia, Dubai and South Africa to foil a “rag and bones” waste-disposal king with an unsavoury fascination for death and decay. Deaver sets up his 21st Century Bond as a veteran of the Royal Naval Reserve in Afghanistan recruited to a new post-9/11 secret-agent role. Bond drinks craft bourbon (Baker’s, on ice, or the lighter Basil Hayden’s). His women are troubled.

Deaver’s villain, the ghoulish Severan Hydt, relishes private moments with corpses from the killing fields he services (covering up genocide and murder through private recycling and waste removal). Creepy Hydt is a passive villain, hardly measuring up to Fleming’s ex-Nazi Hugo Drax, and the shape-shifting evil genius Ernst Stavro Blofeld, both of whom are entertaining baddies. Deaver’s is a dry read, thin in psychological and sensual texture, overloaded with acronyms that Deaver has to include a glossary. View image of (Hodder Paperbacks) (Credit: Hodder Paperbacks) 4. John Gardner Beginning with Licence Renewed in 1981, Gardner, a former Marine commando, espionage writer and author of a James Bond parody series about a cowardly British spy, wrote 14 James Bond novels. Gardner says he set out to "to transport 007 into the 1980s." He ,focussed mostly on nuclear threats and the machinations of SPECTRE (Fleming’s Special Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion).

Gardner introduces memorable American settings in For Special Services – a Louisiana bayou hideout guarded by giant pythons and a private Texas town where a resurrected SPECTRE’s top brass meet to plot destruction. Gardner kept the thriller pace going. And he maintained Fleming’s approach and tone. But he lacked Fleming’s animating imagination and verbal panache. (A typical Gardner line: “James Bond was always amazed by New York.”) He gets extra points for endurance, though. View image of (Orion) (Credit: Orion) 3. William Boyd Literary star Boyd’s Solo, just out in paperback, is a well-crafted novel, set in 1969, with 007 on the front lines of a civil war between Zanzarim and Dahum, a semblance of Nigeria’s Biafran War of the late 1960s. Boyd’s villain – mercenary Kobus Breed, who treats his victims like fish, hooking them through the jaws and hanging them in trees – is suitably vile. And Boyd sketches in an authentically bumptious press corps. But the fictionalised African civil war seems a misstep.

Bond’s directive, to intervene in favour of oil interests on behalf of the US and the UK, while plausible, lends 007’s mission a moral ambiguity that may be appropriate to the historic moment, but not to Bond as we have known him. View image of (Jonathan Cape) (Credit: Jonathan Cape) 2. Kingsley Amis, writing as Robert Markham Amis’s novel Colonel Sun, the first post-Fleming 007 book, finds M rendered powerless after being kidnapped by Colonel Sun of China’s People’s Liberation Army. Bond teams up with Ariadne, an alluring Greek communist, as he unravels a Chinese plot to deal a blow to Russia and lay the blame on Britain. Amis set out to defy the “adolescent fantasy” of the Bond films. He dismissed the cinematic 007 as “that rakish non-entity who drops yobbo-style throwaways out of the corner of his mouth before or after escaping by personal jet-pack or submersible-car fitted with missile-launchers….” Amis’s Bond realises, grimly, “that the tools he basically had to depend on were invisible, intangible, inside himself”.

This is a somber Bond, with painful memories and a future clouded by the rise of new enemies in the sabotage game. Amis captures Fleming’s elegantly tight style, his carefully etched characters and panoramic views of Athens and the invented Aegean island of Vrakonisi. He gets the details right as Bond samples ouzo, retsina, crayfish and olives. He adds psychological depth by giving Bond complex reactions to fear, pain and killing, and threading a personal revenge motive through the narrative. Amis balances well the Fleming formula a reviewer identified in a 1958 review of Dr No: “sex, sadism, snobbery”. View image of (Titan Books Ltd) (Credit: Titan Books Ltd) 1. Sebastian Faulks Faulks’ Devil May Care was published in 2008 to honor the centenary of Fleming’s birth. Faulks, a well-respected literary author, maintains Fleming’s Cold War timeframe, setting the novel in the late 1960s in Paris, Rome, Tehran and Moscow. Bond is following Dr Julius Gorner, a pharmaceutical company head involved in global heroin distribution.

Faulks brings a welcome fluidity to Bond’s thoughts and actions, and creates a strong, versatile character in Bond’s love interest, Scarlett Papava. Faulks tops my list because he succeeded in his stated mission to stay faithful to three enduring elements of Fleming’s Bond books: “the sense of jeopardy Fleming creates about his solitary hero; a certain playfulness in the narrative details; and a crisp, journalistic style that hasn’t dated”. In keeping with Fleming’s Bond, Faulks creates a character, as Kingsley Amis put it, capable of “indignation, compunction, remorse, tenderness and a protective instinct towards defenseless creatures”. Devil May Care is the best Bond reboot to date. If you would like to comment on this story or anything else you have seen on BBC Culture, head over to our Facebook page or message us on Twitter .

James Bond - Ian Fleming Ian Fleming • Slim build, scar down right cheek and on left shoulder • Signs of plastic surgery on back of right hand • All-round athlete; expert pistol shot, boxer • Knife-thrower; does not use disguises Languages: French and German Smokes heavily (NB: special cigarettes with three gold bands); vices: drink, but not to excess, and women. Not thought to accept bribes.’ From Russia with Love Read more A HERO IS BORN Inspired by his experiences in Naval Intelligence during the Second World War and his passion for travelling the world, Ian Fleming sat down at his typewriter at Goldeneye, his home in Jamaica, to write ‘the spy story to end all spy stories’. The result was Casino Royale which was first published by Jonathan Cape in the UK in 1953. Through twelve original novels and nine short stories, Fleming’s James Bond became the most famous fictional spy, spanning both literature and cinema.

× Where It All Began ‘You only live twice: Once when you are born And once when you look death in the face.’ You Only Live Twice Read more BOND’S ORIGINS Ian Fleming’s James Bond was born in the early 1920s to a Scottish father, Andrew Bond, and a Swiss mother, Monique Delacroix. Tragically, when he was only eleven years old, both James’s mother and father died in a climbing accident whilst on holiday in France. After this devastating misfortune, James lived with his aunt Charmian in Kent and went to school at Eton College. After only two halves there he was expelled due to an alleged incident with one of the boys’ maids, and he saw out the rest of his education at his father’s school, Fettes, in Scotland. At the age of seventeen, an old friend of his father’s sent a letter of introduction for Bond to the Admiralty, where he began work shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War. During the War, Bond was enrolled in the secret service and undertook missions abroad for several years before being reassigned to London in 1949.

Shortly after his return to London, James Bond was awarded a licence to kill and from that moment on became known as Agent 007. × Read more A war in the shadows Following the close of the Second World War, the building tension of the forthcoming Cold War brought with it a renewed emphasis on global espionage. This was a war with a frontline populated by spies rather than soldiers and the atmosphere of uncertainty during the ensuing nuclear arms race was fertile ground for stories of clandestine villainy and secret heroism. This led to a rise in the popularity of spy fiction through the 50s and 60s, and Ian Fleming’s British hero soon became one of the most recognisable figures of this ‘spy-mania’. 007 first proved popular with readers in Britain but was soon celebrated in Europe and the United States, where a glowing endorsement for From Russia with Love from President John F. Kennedy helped boost Fleming’s agent to international fame. × Read more FORMIDABLE FOES Fleming pitted Bond against a host of dangerous enemies including the Russian anti-espionage department, SMERSH, and the global criminal organisation, SPECTRE – The Special Executive for Counterintelligence, Terrorism, Revenge, and Extortion.

Fleming’s sinister villains became characters as unforgettable as Bond, from his first adversary Le Chiffre, to the avaricious Goldfinger and of course Bond’s recurring nemesis, Ernst Stavro Blofeld. × Read more LEADING LADIES Each of Fleming’s novels features a strong female counterpart for Bond, sometimes as paramour, sometimes as femme fatale – sometimes both. Readers came to expect a vivacious leading lady at Bond’s side and found her in the form of memorable characters like Pussy Galore, Vesper Lynd and Honey Rider. × The World Of James Bond ‘There are moments of great luxury in the life of a secret agent’ Live and Let Die Read more LUXURY AND TRAVEL Along with battling malevolent villains and romancing beautiful women, James Bond became synonymous with the lavish and exotic. In post-war Britain where most people were restricted by rationing and austerity, Fleming’s novels transported readers to warmer climates and introduced them to sensations they had never experienced.

Bond adopted Fleming’s own penchant for supreme cuisine, the best champagnes, the finest tailoring and nail-biting pursuits such as skiing and scuba diving, offering an escape from the grey and frugal world of 1950s Britain. × Read more EON’S 007 Ian Fleming’s sixth James Bond book, Dr No, was filmed by legendary producers Albert R. ‘Cubby’ Broccoli and Harry Saltzman in 1962, starring Sean Connery as 007. Since then the James Bond films, now produced by Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli, make up the longest running franchise in film history. × Read more BOND LIVES ON Since Ian Fleming’s death in 1964, several writers have been invited to continue James Bond’s legacy in literature. Beginning in 1968 with Kingsley Amis’s Colonel Sun, Bond has gone on to appear in books by John Gardner, Raymond Benson, Sebastian Faulks, Jeffery Deaver, William Boyd and Anthony Horowitz. There are also two series of Young Bond adventures for teenagers written by Charlie Higson and Steve Cole, and old and new Bond stories have been adapted for comic books.

× Continuation Bond Ian Fleming's original series of twelve novels and two short story collections featuring Agent 007. Discover where Bond began. Before the man became the legend, before the boy became the man. Follow James Bond's teenage years in the 1930s through these young adult adventures by Charlie Higson and Steve Cole. Bond brought to life through exciting new comic book releases, collections of remastered 1950s newspaper strips and the Young Bond graphic novel of SilverFin. The secret diaries following the adventures of James Bond's right-hand woman. Beginning with Kingsley Amis in 1968 and with the most recent novel published in 2015 by Anthony Horowitz, discover the new 007 adventures by celebrated authors following in the footsteps of Fleming. Casino Royale In the novel that introduced James Bond to the world, Ian Fleming’s agent 007 is dispatched to a French casino in Royale-les-Eaux. Written by Ian Fleming Read more Live and Let Die James Bond is not a superstitious man, but it’s hard not to feel unnerved in the presence of Mr. Big.

Written by Ian Fleming Read more Moonraker As the super patriot and war veteran who’s bankrolling Britain’s top-secret Moonraker rocket program, Sir Hugo Drax should be above reproach. So why does he cheat at cards? Written by Ian Fleming Read more Diamonds Are Forever An international diamond-smuggling pipeline has opened up and the British Treasury wants to know who’s controlling it. Written by Ian Fleming Read more From Russia with Love James Bond is marked for death by the Soviet counterintelligence agency SMERSH in Ian Fleming’s masterful spy thriller. Written by Ian Fleming Read more Dr. No Dispatched by M to investigate the mysterious disappearance of MI6’s Jamaica station chief, Bond was expecting a holiday in the sun. His encounter with Dr No will prove otherwise. Written by Ian Fleming Read more Goldfinger Auric Goldfinger is the richest man in England-though his wealth can’t be found in banks. Bond is tasked with investigating the mogul’s secret source.

Written by Ian Fleming Read more For Your Eyes Only A departure from the full-length James Bond novels published in 1960, For Your Eyes Only is a stunning collection of five stories that sends 007 to Bermuda, Berlin, and beyond, and places him in the dangerous company of adversaries of all varieties. Written by Ian Fleming Read more Thunderball Upon M’s insistence, James Bond takes a two-week respite in a secluded health spa. Amidst the tranquil environs, Bond stumbles upon the beginning of a trail which leads to SPECTRE. Written by Ian Fleming Read more The Spy Who Loved Me Set apart from the other books in Ian Fleming’s James Bond series, The Spy Who Loved Me is told from the perspective of a femme fatale in the making–a victim of circumstance with a wounded heart. Written by Ian Fleming Read more On Her Majesty’s Secret Service In the aftermath of Operation Thunderball, Ernst Stavro Blofeld’s trail has gone cold-and so has 007’s love for his job. The only thing that can rekindle his passion is Contessa Teresa ‘Tracy’ di Vicenzo, a troubled young woman who shares his taste for fast cars and danger.

Written by Ian Fleming Read more You Only Live Twice The tragic end to James Bond’s last mission – courtesy of Ernst Stavro Blofeld – has left 007 a broken man and of little use to the British Secret Service. Written by Ian Fleming Read more The Man with the Golden Gun Bond may have a licence to kill, but ‘Pistols’ Scaramanga has a talent for it. He’s a KGB-trained assassin who’s left a trail of dead British Secret Service agents in his wake. Written by Ian Fleming Read more Octopussy & The Living Daylights The last collection of James Bond adventures from Ian Fleming published in 1966, Octopussy and The Living Daylights features four tales of intrigue that push 007 to the limit and find the secret agent questioning where he can go from there… Written by Ian Fleming Read more The SPECTRE Trilogy SPECTRE is the ultimate threat; the merciless international terrorist organisation led by James Bond’s nemesis, Ernst Stavro Blofeld. Written by Ian Fleming Read more Casino Royale Illustrated Collector’s Edition This edition from The Folio Society features lavish illustrations from artist Fay Dalton, with high quality cloth binding and slipcase.

James Bond is sent to Royale-Les-Eaux in order to bankrupt an enemy operative at the baccarat table in Ian Fleming’s debut thriller. Written by Ian Fleming Read more From Russia with Love Illustrated Collector’s Edition Named as Ian Fleming’s finest novel in numerous polls, and described by the author as, ‘In many respects, my best book’, this nail-biting thriller sees 007 ensnared by an elaborate plot devised by the Soviet counter-intelligence agency, SMERSH. William Boyd's Solo: James Bond authors past and present - Telegraph Books William Boyd's Solo: James Bond authors past and present From Kingsley Amis to Jeffrey Deaver, William Boyd has joined a long list of writers to pen a James Bond novel. We run down the complete list. The first-edition covers of Kingsley Amis's 'Colonel Sun' and William Boyd's 'Solo' By Matt Lewis 3:40PM BST 26 Sep 2013 1) Kingsley Amis, Colonel Sun (1968) The first of the Bond continuation novels after Ian Fleming’s 1964 death was written by Kingsley Amis under the pseudonym Robert Markham.

The celebrated author of Lucky Jim (1954) created a Greek-set novel with more political intrigue than the original works. No film adaptation was ever made but the plot point of M being kidnapped was borrowed by the 1999 film The World is Not Enough. Malcolm Bradbury described it as “neither vintage Fleming nor vintage Amis”, but it still managed to sell a reported 500,000 copies by 1980. 2) John Gardner, License Renewed (1981) – COLD (1996) The second author to take up the Bond reins was John Gardner , a man whose previous job roles included both Royal Marines commando and Anglican priest. Known initially for his humorous Bond pastiches featuring reluctant spy Boysie Oakes, he vowed to “bring Bond into the 1980s”. He wrote fourteen new Bond novels in all, starting with the aptly titled License Renewed (1981) – none of which were made into films. Despite being criticised for their increasing implausibility and receiving muted reactions from reviewers, several of the novels appeared on the New York Times Best Seller list.

3) Raymond Benson, Zero Minus Ten to The Man with the Red Tattoo (2002) Related Articles James Bond's best film posters 22 Oct 2015 U.S. crime writer Raymond Benson was the third writer chosen by Fleming’s estate, and the first non-British author. Benson had previously gained attention by writing The James Bond Bedside Companion, about Fleming’s work and the films. The American’s six original James Bond novels saw the spy indulging in seamier activities, including group sex and visiting a prostitute. None of his books were adapted for film or attracted a large following and all are out of print in the UK. His most recent novel is an adaptation of the video game Hitman . 4) Sebastian Faulks, Devil May Care (2008) To mark the centenary of Ian Fleming’s birth in 2008, literary novelist Sebastian Faulks was commissioned to write next Bond novel. Known for his war novels such as Birdsong (1993), Faulks likened the job at hand to "asking someone who writes complex symphonic music if they would like to write a three-minute pop song".

For that reason, he decided to write the book “as Ian Fleming”, setting the action in 1967. It was well received by critics and was the bestselling fiction title of that year, after the Harry Potter books, selling 44,093 copies in its first four days of release. With the Bond film franchise unlikely to ever make a period film, a screen adaptation of the novel is doubtful . 5) Jeffrey Deaver, Carte Blanche (2011) As Faulks declined to write another Bond novel, bestselling American crime writer Jeffrey Deaver was chosen to write the next in the series. Deaver is known for his mystery crime novels like The Bone Collector (1997), which was made into a 1999 film of the same name starring Denzel Washington . Having updated Bond for the 21st century, the novel was the first present-day Bond book since Benson’s last. Reviews were decent but sales were disappointing in the UK and there are currently no plans for a film adaptation. 6) William Boyd, Solo (2013) Another prize-winning novelist, William Boyd , accepted the offer to write the most recent Bond novel, Solo.

A self-confessed Bond aficionado , the African-born writer set much of the 1969 action in the continent of his birth. Early reviews have been generally positive , though his decision to use a fictional African country Zanzarim and the convoluted plot have met with some disapproval .

Question: The character 'James Bond' was created by Ian Fleming, but who wrote the book 'License Renewed' featuring 'James Bond'?
Answer: JOHN GARDNER